Adam Zagoria covers basketball at all levels. He is the author of two books and an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Sports Illustrated, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide.
St. John’s Defeats Marquette, Keeps Possible NCAA Bid Hope Alive
By JOHN PAVIA Special to ZAGSBLOGNEW YORK — St. John’s basketball team is officially on the road to redemption after a stellar performance in a 74-59 win over Marquette at Madison Square Garden.
Following a dreadful 0-5 start in Big East play, St. John’s (13-9, 3-6) has rebounded nicely to win four of their last five with their only loss coming to a talented Creighton team on a game-winning 3-pointer from their star player, Doug McDermott.D’Angelo Harrison led the way for the Red Storm with 27 points and six rebounds while teammates JaKarr Sampson and Chris Obekpa made their presences known as they capped a well-rounded performance from the now-streaking St. John’s team. Sampson finished with 10 points and seven rebounds while Obekpa’s seven blocks started several instances of transition offense.
“This is four out of five wins for us,” Harrison said. “We have great momentum. You know, [the] heartbreak in Creighton, but we came out and we played hard today and got the W. Everything is moving in the right direction. You know, everybody just bought in. We always have great practices, it’s finally clicking now. Everybody had a great game today. It was just a good win for us.”
Harrison then spoke about what it took for things to click and for everyone to buy in.
“Just sacrificing a little bit of your game,” he said. “We would do a lot of film work, we watched a lot of tape. So you know, just getting with the coaches and seeing what you do wrong and what you do right. Just making sure you do more things right than you do wrong. Everybody has just bought in.”
Sampson also talked about what they can still accomplish going forward this season.
“We just got off to a slow start, but I feel like everything is still there for us,” he said. “I feel like the sky is the limit, you know, we still got a lot of games to play, you know, we still got the tournament and I feel like there’s still an opportunity there. I feel like we just gotta get better.”
Harrison agreed.
“A lot of our games have been a couple possessions here and there, missed lay-ups, missed jump shots so if we would’ve corrected those things, it would’ve been a different kind of season,” he said. “Like I said, everybody’s still locked in and you know, we’re buying into the process that coach [Lavin] is stressing. We’re all believing that we can turn things around and we have in the last five games.”
Coach Steve Lavin talked about the progress his team has made recently.
“I just thought the kids took another positive step forward which is encouraging as we round the corner and head towards the second half of Big East play,” he said. “There were a number of encouraging aspects of play today and as a result we were able to get a win against a very feisty Marquette team.”
Lavin also spoke about his team being on the wrong end of too many close games and being “snakebitten” with some of the losses on their resume. He remained hopeful that “with the progress they’ve made in recent weeks, they would begin to see some of these results to go their way and put some more wins up in the Big East.”
He also mentioned that “he thought this team would be one that would gel by late January, early February.”
When asked if this stretch of good play was the beginning of a run back towards an NCAA Tournament at-large bid, Lavin echoed Harrison and Sampson’s sentiments from earlier.
“I mean, the goals are always there, you know, because if you don’t get enough wins during the regular season, then you try and get in through the conference tournament,” he said. “You always want to try and do something special by playing your best basketball come February and March. I still love the upside of this team, I like our personnel, I like our parts [and] I’ve never come off that. We just had a really difficult stretch where we lost a number of close games. Usually, you get a split…There’s 50-50 games and we just haven’t gotten any of them.”
The evidence certainly seems to support that with this recent streak and even in most of the losses they’ve had recently, especially since the second half of the Georgetown loss. In the five losses they’ve had since that game, St. John’s has lost by a combined 13 points for an average of 2.6 points being average margin of defeat in those games.
Following the game, Marquette coach Buzz Williams discussed his hopes for who wins the Big East tournament.
“Selfishly, as a Big East proponent, I hope someone that isn’t supposed to win the tournament wins it so we [the Big East] can have another bid,” he said.
He added: “St. John’s has the best roster in the league. Nine major guys that can score, rebound and block the way they do…I think they’re good enough to win any game they play for the rest of the season.”
Photo: St. John’s
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Adam Zagoria is a Basketball Insider who covers basketball at all levels. A contributor to The New York Times and SportsNet New York (SNY), he is also the author of two books and is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker. His articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide. He also won an Emmy award for his work on the SNY mini-documentary on Syracuse guard Tyus Battle.
A veteran Ultimate Frisbee player, he has competed in numerous National and World Championships and, perhaps more importantly, his teams won the Westchester Summer League (WSL) championships in 2011 and 2013.
He lives in Manhattan with his wife and children.
By JOHN PAVIA
Special to ZAGSBLOG
NEW YORK — St. John’s basketball team is officially on the road to redemption after a stellar performance in a 74-59 win over Marquette at Madison Square Garden.
Following a dreadful 0-5 start in Big East play, St. John’s (13-9, 3-6) has rebounded nicely to win four of their last five with their only loss coming to a talented Creighton team on a game-winning 3-pointer from their star player, Doug McDermott.
D’Angelo Harrison led the way for the Red Storm with 27 points and six rebounds while teammates JaKarr Sampson and Chris Obekpa made their presences known as they capped a well-rounded performance from the now-streaking St. John’s team. Sampson finished with 10 points and seven rebounds while Obekpa’s seven blocks started several instances of transition offense.
“This is four out of five wins for us,” Harrison said. “We have great momentum. You know, [the] heartbreak in Creighton, but we came out and we played hard today and got the W. Everything is moving in the right direction. You know, everybody just bought in. We always have great practices, it’s finally clicking now. Everybody had a great game today. It was just a good win for us.”
Harrison then spoke about what it took for things to click and for everyone to buy in.
“Just sacrificing a little bit of your game,” he said. “We would do a lot of film work, we watched a lot of tape. So you know, just getting with the coaches and seeing what you do wrong and what you do right. Just making sure you do more things right than you do wrong. Everybody has just bought in.”
Sampson also talked about what they can still accomplish going forward this season.
“We just got off to a slow start, but I feel like everything is still there for us,” he said. “I feel like the sky is the limit, you know, we still got a lot of games to play, you know, we still got the tournament and I feel like there’s still an opportunity there. I feel like we just gotta get better.”
Harrison agreed.
“A lot of our games have been a couple possessions here and there, missed lay-ups, missed jump shots so if we would’ve corrected those things, it would’ve been a different kind of season,” he said. “Like I said, everybody’s still locked in and you know, we’re buying into the process that coach [Lavin] is stressing. We’re all believing that we can turn things around and we have in the last five games.”
Coach Steve Lavin talked about the progress his team has made recently.
“I just thought the kids took another positive step forward which is encouraging as we round the corner and head towards the second half of Big East play,” he said. “There were a number of encouraging aspects of play today and as a result we were able to get a win against a very feisty Marquette team.”
Lavin also spoke about his team being on the wrong end of too many close games and being “snakebitten” with some of the losses on their resume. He remained hopeful that “with the progress they’ve made in recent weeks, they would begin to see some of these results to go their way and put some more wins up in the Big East.”
He also mentioned that “he thought this team would be one that would gel by late January, early February.”
When asked if this stretch of good play was the beginning of a run back towards an NCAA Tournament at-large bid, Lavin echoed Harrison and Sampson’s sentiments from earlier.
“I mean, the goals are always there, you know, because if you don’t get enough wins during the regular season, then you try and get in through the conference tournament,” he said. “You always want to try and do something special by playing your best basketball come February and March. I still love the upside of this team, I like our personnel, I like our parts [and] I’ve never come off that. We just had a really difficult stretch where we lost a number of close games. Usually, you get a split…There’s 50-50 games and we just haven’t gotten any of them.”
The evidence certainly seems to support that with this recent streak and even in most of the losses they’ve had recently, especially since the second half of the Georgetown loss. In the five losses they’ve had since that game, St. John’s has lost by a combined 13 points for an average of 2.6 points being average margin of defeat in those games.
Following the game, Marquette coach Buzz Williams discussed his hopes for who wins the Big East tournament.
“Selfishly, as a Big East proponent, I hope someone that isn’t supposed to win the tournament wins it so we [the Big East] can have another bid,” he said.
He added: “St. John’s has the best roster in the league. Nine major guys that can score, rebound and block the way they do…I think they’re good enough to win any game they play for the rest of the season.”
Photo: St. John’s
Follow John on Twitter
